


Terd Petrol

by melianthegreat



Category: Sim City, The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Childishness, Gaming, Silly, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-20 04:17:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22943086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melianthegreat/pseuds/melianthegreat
Summary: James and Richard get obsessed with a computer game. Antics abound.
Relationships: Richard Hammond/James May
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Terd Petrol

**Author's Note:**

> The game is loosely based on SimCity Buildit, which I play. I used to have one of the cities mentioned but had to change the name. It's now named after another city. It's a fun game, though not as elaborate in the upper levels.

When all was said and done, blame could be placed on Vodka. Okay, also on downtime and Idle Minds and especially childish behavior of grown men. But it was mostly the booze.

There had been an extended break in filming, and instead of Richard and James taking off for a holiday they simply decided to stay home. It was a chance to not work, no writing, no filming, no nothing. It was the best way to recharge their batteries.

One night Richard woke up and realized James wasn't in bed with him, and a glance at the ensuite door said he wasn't using the toilet, either. Curiosity got the better of his desire to go back to sleep, so he left the room in search of James. There were times he knew James had trouble sleeping, and what he usually did at these moments was to go down to the living room and sit on the couch until he felt the desire to sleep.

This time, however, that wasn't what Richard found. James was indeed sitting on the sofa, but this time he had the tablet in his hands, a look of determined enjoyment on his face. "James? Can't sleep?" He asked softly.

"Sorry, Hammond," James replied, putting the tablet down and inviting Richard to sit beside him. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't, really," Richard replied as he sat. "I missed you beside me." He gave a kiss to James' shoulder. "What are you doing on the tablet?"

"Playing a game," James answered. "I'm building a city." Richard lifted an eyebrow; he would have expected James to be playing chess or solitaire, or at least a car design site, but no. James was actually creating a city, with buildings and schools, parks and trees. "The game lets you create a city the way you want. You can place skyscrapers where you want, you can make suburbs, vacation homes, everything. I figure some of this will make me sleepy."

"So, it allows you to indulge your God Complex," Richard said.

"Yeah, I guess it does," James replied, giving a smile. "And my breaks in playing are my One Day in Seven."

Richard watched James play in silence for a few minutes. "Do you have regular city problems?" he asked. "Labour problems and strikes?"

"Just traffic so far," James told him. "Those kind of administrative problems happen later, in upper levels of the game. Under my rule that won't happen, however. I'll try to make them see reason, then if they won't I'll just have the military kill them and break the strike. And I'll rain disasters down on the city to teach the others a lesson."

Richard sat back and stared at him. "That's a bit dark," he muttered. "With those kind of delusions of grandeur, shouldn't you be living in a hollowed out volcano?"

"I can get that when I reach Level 50, Hammond," James said matter-of-factly.

Richard watched James place a few more buildings and make money on shipments. Finally the game indicated that he had made it to the next level. "And now," James announced, "you get to see a dream come true, sort of."

"A dream come true?" Richard asked. "In a computer game?" James nodded, then started placing small buildings all over his city. "What are those?"

"Petrol stations, Hammond."

Richard was confused. 'Your dream come true for your city is to own petrol stations? "

James smirked. "Remember when we were driving through Georgia and Azerbaijan and found the petrol station?" Richard immediately started snickering at the memory; a group of otherwise adult men had fits of hysteria over that. "I swore to myself I was going to bring that to Britain somehow, and in a way I have." James tapped an icon and showed Richard the name of the beautiful city he'd so carefully developed, and Richard nearly fell off the sofa laughing.

The city was named Terd.

Richard's eyes danced. "Terd! As in Turd Petrol?!"

James beamed with pride. "The game algorithm generated a rather poncy name like Magnolia Wetlands or something," he explained. "I felt a name change was important."

Richard rolled his eyes. "Okay," he sighed. "I'm going back to bed. Coming soon?" James smiled at him in response. Richard went back upstairs. By the time James came back to bed, Richard had grabbed his tablet, downloaded the game, and named his own city Hamsters Knob.

***

Both Richard and James spent an hour a day playing the game, advancing through the levels with alacrity. James had earned enough money from his shipments to expand his land and establish the Terd Refinery. Along with several Terd factories, and one of the items produced turned out to be beans. Richard secretly wondered, childishly, if James' factories also produced Terd Cheese and Terd Kale, though in the long run it was probably better for a city called Terd to produce such things, rather than any city with the word "Wetland" in its name.

Not that Hamsters Knob had many complaints. Richard found he took to this game like a duck to water, and in a shockingly short time was even with James in levels. Which was a good thing, because one afternoon as they were playing in the living room on individual tablets, both quietly advanced to a new level. On this new level the player could consult with a mad scientist named Wang, who could provide the player weapons to destroy another city. The feature appealed to those who were failed dictators, latent mad scientists, delusions of grandeur, and, in James' and Richard's case, those who were blatantly childish and emotionally immature. But Richard decided a happy population wanted to stay that way, and the constant rebuilding of homes and running in terror from the latest disaster would definitely affect their happiness levels, not to mention population growth and tax base. He chose to leave Terd to its own devices, hoping Hamsters Knob could keep growing on the sly.

***

A startling development occurred when filming resumed. James and Richard sat in the break room during one lunch period, playing the game, when Jeremy walked in. Neither of them seemed to notice Jeremy as he made a deliberate fuss of getting a cup and making himself some coffee, then sat heavily in the chair and grabbed a magazine, loudly flipping the pages. After a few minutes of being ignored he decided that was enough. "You're not paying attention to me," he announced, "which leads me to only a few conclusions. One, I've done something to piss you off, which isn't possible because I've been perfectly behaved this morning." Without looking up, Richard and James gave a simultaneous snort. "Two, you're been fighting and you're not speaking to each other, which doesn't explain how you're both engrossed in something at the same time. Or three...you two have found Build A City."

James looked up. "How do you know about Build A City?" he asked.

Jeremy scoffed at them. "I have you know," he replied dryly, "I am a Level 50." At that both James and Richard raised their eyebrows. "Doctor Wang and I are friends, I certainly keep him busy." He gave a chuckle. "Emily introduced me, then my son told me he plays it. I scored a lot of points kicking his arse with disasters. "

"That doesn't shock me much," Richard answered, frowning and shaking his head, "beating up on your kid like that."

Jeremy stared at him. "Hammond, have you _seen_ Finlo lately?! In real life he could kick my arse whenever he feels like it! And don't tell me you and May don't score on each other." Jeremy looked over his reading glasses at them accusingly.

Richard stared back over to Jeremy over his own glasses. "May and I score on each other on a regular basis," he snarked. "In fact there's something we can both do with our tongues that--oh, you mean the _game_!" James brayed laughter as Jeremy threw a particularly frightened and scandalized facial expression; Richard simply gave a cheeky grin.

"The answer, Clarkson, is no--we do not attack each other in the game," James chimed in. "And I think I've found your city. Nice name, very appropriate. For you." Richard started laughing when James showed him Jeremy's city name, which was indeed right for Jeremy Clarkson: J.C. Genius. 

"Nice city, Jezza," Richard said, moving his finger over the screen. "Very pretty, and you clearly worked hard on it. Such a shame for me to destroy it." Richard tapped the screen, then a giant hand came down and flattened several buildings. James nodded his approval and gave a smug face to Jeremy.

Jeremy narrowed his eyes as he stared at Richard and James. "Just for that, I'm coming over tonight," he announced. "I'm going to pull out my Wang and destroy you both!"

"It's on," James replied, his eyes glittering. "Curry and wine will be provided."

"Then we're going to pull out our Wangs and see who has the best one," Richard announced.

"Oh no you won't!" Andy Wilman said with indignation as he overheard the last statement and had no idea what they had been discussing.

***

The night started with curry and wine. It ended with Vodka and Wangs. In fact, after the Vodka started, Wangs were getting whipped out all over the place.

All three were quiet as each scoped the other's cities, admiring the layout of each, sneakily gauging the weak points. The opening salvo was fired by Jeremy against Richard, seeking vengeance on the clown hand smashing his buildings. Jeremy launched a lightning storm against Hamsters Knob, rendering his countryside a flaming pile of hamster people. Amid a lot of swearing by Hammond and evil chuckling by Jeremy, James figured it was the right moment for a counterattack. He unleashed a tornado onto J.C Genius that would have made Dorothy Gale stand up and sing the state song of Kansas with pride. With an anguished shout by Jeremy, the twister took its half out of the middle of the city.

"MAY! YOU ARSE!" Jeremy thundered. "Out of the middle of my city! Do you know how long it will take to rebuild that?"

"About as long as it will take to rebuild this," Richard said, an unhinged gleam in his eyes, his finger dramatically poised over his screen. His finger came down. Suddenly, James gasped as a bomb fell on the Terd Bean Factory, accompanied by Hammond making a mock farting noise. Jeremy roared laughter. But the destruction of the Bean Factory wasn't the full extent of the destruction of the bomb; the missile split into several, branching out into different locations. Several smaller explosions filled up the screen.

"Hammond! My petrol stations!" James shouted in horror as Jeremy waved a triumphant fist in the air.

"HA!" Richard crowed. "Terd Petrol is NO MORE!!"

James narrowed his eyes and glared at him. "Why did you do that?" He quietly demanded.

Richard couldn't help but give him a smug glance. "Because my Wang told me to," he answered. "I simply felt like you needed to suffer a bit."

James continued to stare at Richard. "Of course you realize this means war," he replied, his voice dark. 

"Actually, chaps, not tonight," Jeremy stated as he stared at his watch. "We have a writing session tomorrow, so it's time for us to put away our Wangs for the night."

"Maybe so," James conceded. "As it is, our attack period is over for the moment. Gives us time to make repairs and plot revenge." He looked straight at Richard. "And am I ever planning revenge."

Richard felt uneasy. "What kind of revenge?" 

James gave Richard an evil grin. "I'm not sure, yet," he replied. "But by the time I'm finished with you, Hamsters Knob may be little more than hamster knobs."

***

The first half of the day was dedicated to writing with Richard Porter, but amid the Mongolian Cluster-thing that usually was, where the Chaos Theory was given absolute proof of existence, James, Jeremy, and Richard were plotting in the back of their minds. Each were driven by revenge against the others, working out how to destroy their cities once and for all. And each came up with an idea at the same time, though they'd have to keep it quiet for the moment; it simply involved pulling out their Wangs and cueing the music

After lunch they were called into the conference room for a meeting with Andy Wilman for budgeting and logistics. This was a guaranteed snoozefest, because it usually was; as gifted a creator and producer that Andy was, the times he was actually required to sit there and talk about numbers ended up with the three of them having their eyes cross with boredom. It was the perfect opportunity to bring in their smartphones linked to the game, make everything silent, and do battle.

As Wilman tiredly discussed quarterly breakdowns, boring even himself. Richard noticed the giant footprints. Then, Godzilla was laying waste to Hamsters Knob. Godzilla had been unleashed by James.

 _Oi_ , he texted James in the chat window, _I have a Tokyo section, but you don't have to turn this into a Japanese monster movie._

James simply smiled at Richard. _Serves you right, you short arse._

 _I get revenge, you know_ , Richard texted. But then Jeremy decided to send in King Kong to smash what buildings Godzilla didn't attempt. But Hammond had his own weapon to unleash. Believing the best way of ending an attack would be to attack the attacker's own city, Richard launched it on J.C. Genius: a giant hamster, in a giant hamster ball. The hamster scurried wildly, inflicting random damage on buildings that were knocked down and flattened.

All Jeremy could do was reply in text: _You knob_. All Richard could do was smile brightly.

 _And now for you_ , Richard texted James, his hamster now descending on Terd with great vengeance and furious anger. James, however, was waiting for him; Godzilla's first breath exploded the hamster into, well, a giant ball of flame.

 _There you go_ , James replied in chat, _one giant flaming rodent._

It took Hammond a moment to reply, to come up with something that would really crush James' ego. _Does that taste anything like your shepherd's pie?_ he asked; next to him, Richard could hear Jeremy suppress a snicker. James glared at the two men across the table. Richard, however, wasn't done with the wanton destruction. In place of the now-barbecued hamster ball, Ghidrah the three-headed monster aimed its collective firepower at the Terd refinery. Not only did the refinery explode, but there were several more small explosions as the Terd Petrol stations that weren't destroyed the night before were levelled.

Jeremy, meanwhile, was continuing to let King Kong run amok in Hamsters Knob, stomping around. _Hee hee hee, squashing little hamster knobs_ , he put in the chat window.

 _But the biggest hamster knob is sitting next to you_ , came James' reply.

There was a beat. _And just for that..._ Richard stated, then had Ghidrah blast the rest of Terd for good measure.

What Richard got back from James was a very terse response: _Remember, I have you in my bed._

 _And, technically, I am your boss, Teeth_ , Jeremy added.

_Well, you can take both those things and you can --_

There was a cough. All three looked up into the rather annoyed face of Andy Wilman; he had apparently droned on for a bit, then asked a question, but none of them had caught it. "Phones. Now." he'd commanded, looking for all the world like a school headmaster catching his students reading comic books instead of conjugating Latin. Without a word they handed them over.

***

After the meeting, Andy excused himself to his office, something he rarely did, so the guys were quite sure they were about to receive a legendary bollocking for getting busted playing a video game. Each sat at their desks sheepishly, barely looking at each other. Then their mobiles, that Andy returned when the meeting was over, chimed.

_Log into the game._

They did. What they found were mushroom clouds in place of their cities. An envelope appeared in the corner, indicating a message:

 _Have you pillocks not considered what it is I do in what little free time I have?_ the message said. _Here you are, thinking you can pull out your Wangs and beating each other up with them. So while you play with King Kong and a bunch of Japanese monsters, my Wang reminds me that I carry ICBMs. Just reminding you who's the real boss around here. Now get back to work before I'm tempted to pull out my Wang in real life and see if I can find nuclear weapons._

_Wilman_  
_The Almighty_  
_Level 75_

"Shit," Jeremy muttered.

"Christ in a bike," Richard muttered

"Oh, cock, " James muttered.

Another message came in from Wilman:

_P.S.: My fellow moderators of the game have decided to ban you. The three of you are simply too childishly inappropriate. That is all._

James stared straight at Hammond and Clarkson. "You pillocks," he said sourly.

"Come on, James," Jeremy replied. "What would you have done once your city was perfected, build another one? Stick with Monopoly."

"Monopoly won't create the chance to get mean, " Richard added. "We were getting pretty vicious there at the end."

"Like what you said about my shepherd's pie," James agreed with a frown. 

"But I like your shepherd's pie, really I do!" Richard pled his case, knowing he was indeed in trouble; it was okay to insult James on several fronts, but the shepherds pie wasn't one of them. "I said that in the heat of battle, nothing more."

"Fine," James answered. "But until I get over losing my city, and the fact I can't rebuild it, you're sleeping in the guest room." He walked away. "And make sure you put extra blankets on the bed, because it's going to be awfully cold in the house for awhile."

***

"Who wants to be what?" James asked as he set up the Monopoly board.

"I'll be the car, as usual," Jeremy announced .

"I'm in the mood to be the dog," Richard answered, definitely being in the doghouse since getting banned from Build a City and the unwise, smartassed comment about the shepherds pie. It had been 10 days since and Richard had indeed been banished from James' bed (though Richard noted James nearly relented this morning, until James was writing out the grocery list and reminded himself to pick up ingredients for a shepherds pie).

For supper tonight, James didn't bake a shepherds pie. Instead, to accompany the delivered curry, James made a treat-- a pan of homemade brownies, which Jezza and Richard scarfed down, admiring the richness of the fudge. And with each brownie eaten James smiled in satisfaction. There was a secret ingredient in the mix, though neither James nor the box of laxative sitting in the medicine cabinet were spilling any secrets. James was definitely getting his revenge, making sure the only sounds of explosion wouldn't be his beloved Terd Petrol stations.

He'd forgive both of them in a couple of days. After they recovered.

**Author's Note:**

> This story took a long time to finish. I had to find the right silly mood in which to write, then only in small amounts. It took so long, I started and abandoned five other ideas, then wrote Under Another Sky and Out There before finishing this one.


End file.
